Second Concert of the 72nd Season

Leroy Anderson was born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1908, and died in Woodbury, Conn., in 1975. He is best known for his attractive melodies and jaunty rhythms in such pieces as The Syncopated Clock and Sleigh Ride. He was also notable for his use of unconventional instruments, as in The Typewriter and The Sandpaper Ballet (a typewriter and sandpaper were both used as instruments).

Anderson studied composition at Harvard with Georges Enesco and Walter Piston. He was a linguist, specializing in German and Scandinavian languages, and served with U.S. Intelligence in Iceland and the U.S. during the Second World War.

George (or Georg) Frideric Handel (or Händel), that German-born British subject who wrote Italian music, was a bundle of contradictions. The varied spelling of his name reflects the mobility of artists and composers common to that period. Names were often spelled according to the practice of the country of residence. He spelled his name "Handel" on his petition for British citizenship.

Handel had a complex personality. On the one hand, he was pious and sentimental to the point of crying over his own music when it dealt with the sufferings of the Lord. On the other hand, he had an uncontrollable temper which prompted associates to play practical jokes on him, sometimes resulting in violence. A prankster once untuned all the instruments just before a concert for the Prince of Wales, and Handel was so enraged that he picked up a kettle-drum and threw it at the concertmaster. He was persuaded to continue the concert only after the Prince made a personal plea.

Handel had no patience with incompetence, but he did have a sense of humor. When a singer complaining about Handel's style of accompaniment threatened to jump on the harpsichord and smash it to pieces, Handel calmly replied that if the singer gave ample warning, he would publicize the event, because he was sure that more people would come to watch the singer jump on a harpsichord than to hear him sing.

Handel was an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, born in the same year and dying nine years later than Bach. They had similar backgrounds, came from the same part of Germany, were both devout Protestants, but they were temperamentally quite different. While Bach remained steadfastly middle class and spent his meager earnings on raising a large family, Handel was a cosmopolitan who traveled widely, made and lost fortunes, and mingled with the aristocracy and the intellectual elite.

He was overwhelmed by Italy, where he spent much time. His Italianate operas were very successful, and brought him great fame in England soon after he arrived there. In the span of less than forty years, he wrote forty-six operas, all in Italian style. When the public's interest in Italian opera began to wane, Handel began to work more in the oratorio form. His "second career" made him even more famous, and today he is known mostly for his oratorios, of which his Messiah is the most performed.